Understanding Acoustic Treatment The one item every studio needs and many will neglect also happens to be the most important. It is the fundamental piece of gear that affects every single sound you record, mix, or master. And that is acoustic treatment.
What Does Acoustic Treatment Do? Such an item changes the acoustic environment in a way to neutralize common problems within interior rooms, such as standing waves, flutter echoes, room nodes (including axial, tangential, and oblique nodes) and a host of other problems including but limited to long reverb times and ridiculous bass response. The way to achieve balance and harmony in your music studio is by applying acoustic treatment in the properly calculated places on your walls to absorb errant sound waves that would otherwise bounce around back and forth, destructively and constructively interfering with the sounds you’re attempting to hear or record. These types of acoustic panels include reflection panels, absorption panels for broadband and bass, bass traps such as super chunks, and diffusors.
The goal is to either absorb most of the extra sound waves across the entire frequency spectrum or to scatter them and take the energy out of them so that they exist equally across the spectrum, but not powerfully. The picture above shows a collection of broadband absorbers mounted to the wall with air gaps to increase bass absorption as well as mid-range and high frequency absorption.
More Acoustic Treatment Resources To discover how to build your own acoustic treatment, where to purchase, and how to mount them in the right places, please visit the Ledger Note article known as The Acoustic Treatment Guide for Panels and Foam. From there, you will gain an entire overview of the topic as well as find the resources needed to dig deeper into the world of acoustic treatment.